DHARAMSALA: England captain Ben Stokes said Wednesday his team had “progressed” during their tough tour of India, with debutants Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir shining despite the tourists losing the five-match series.
The visitors won the opener but India bounced back to win the next three ahead of the final match in Dharamsala starting Thursday.
“At 3-1 you think it’s not been a success but I look at it with completely different angles to that and I think we’ve definitely progressed as a team, even though we haven’t got the results we wanted,” Stokes told reporters.
“But you say India haven’t had some of their best players, you look at the players we came out here with. We were written off completely before we had even played a game this series,” he added.
“Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir, people couldn’t believe we’d picked them. Look at what they’ve managed to achieve on this trip.”
India’s Rohit says England Tests made him better captain
Hartley, a left-arm spinner who made his debut in the opening match of the series, leads the bowling with 20 wickets in four matches.
Bashir missed the opener due to a visa issue but came back to bag 12 wickets in the two matches he played.
England have made one change to their line-up for the final match with Mark Wood replacing fellow quick Ollie Robinson, who went wicketless in the team’s previous loss.
“Before we even got here we were probably thinking it was going to be a three seamer one spinner attack,” said Stokes.
“But then when we saw the wicket and then saw it again today, I think going with two seamers and two spinners is probably the right call.”
No stopping Jimmy
Veteran seamer James Anderson, 41, retains his place and is just two shy of becoming the third bowler to take 700 Test wickets after Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and the late Australian great Shane Warne (708).
“Jimmy coming up to 700 wickets, it’s phenomenal to think about, especially as a seam bowler,” Stokes said of his warhorse.
“Amazing career to date, and I can’t see him stopping. I have played with Jimmy for a long time and I’ve never seen him as physically fit as he does right now,” he added.
“Being 41, showing that hunger and desire to get better every single day is testament to his attitude and commitment to the game.”
A stomach bug has hit the England camp with Bashir and Robinson missing Wednesday’s training and in isolation at the team hotel.
But Stokes said it was “not a major issue, we just wanted to safeguard against anything spreading to someone else”.
Struggling England batsman Jonny Bairstow will win his 100th cap and India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is also in line to reach the same milestone, having already passed 500 Test wickets during the series.
The weather in Dharamsala could play a huge part in the match. The picturesque ground is surrounded by snow-capped peaks at an altitude of 1,317 metres (4,320 feet).
There is a risk of sleet and forecasts say temperatures could plunge as low as 1 Celsius (34 Fahrenheit) on Thursday.
India won the fourth Test in Ranchi by five wickets and have not lost a home series since 2012, when Alastair Cook’s England won 2-1.
England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes (capt), Ben Foakes, Tom Hartley, Mark Wood, James Anderson, Shoaib Bashir